“The money that we need to fight Zika is rapidly running out”. This week an unprecedented travel advisory was given for southern Florida after more than a dozen people were diagnosed with Zika after being bitten by “homegrown” mosquitoes.
Advertisement
On the heels of a National Institute of Health announcement Wednesday that the facility is launching clinical trials on humans of a Zika vaccine, the Defense Department said Thursday its vaccine candidate has been tested in monkeys and has been proved effective.
Researchers will observe the volunteers during a 44-week period after their first dose, to determine if the vaccine is safe. Reports state that one of these vaccines is scheduled to enter human studies in 2016. However, Zika virus infection during pregnancy can cause a serious birth defect called microcephaly, as well as other severe fetal defects of the brain and other organs. In the USA alone, about 6,400 Zika virus infection cases have already been reported.
The threat of contracting Zika has led for some athletes to skip the Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. These are believed to be the first mosquito-transmitted cases in the mainland United States, a situation that Nelson said heightens the urgency to respond.
The pressure has mounted after it was confirmed this week that 15 people in Florida had caught the virus from local populations of mosquitoes.
“They can go lots of places to get money”, Blunt said. “But I do think our current data raises substantial optimism that development of a vaccine might be possible, and therefore accelerates the process of vaccine development”. “So we showed for all of these vaccines that the protection was the result of vaccine-induced antibodies”. If the results are positive, the NIH will conduct another trial in countries where the Zika virus is spreading. It’s a standard way to create a vaccine.
All three, it turned out, spurred the monkeys’ immune systems to produce Zika-fighting antibodies.
All three conferred full protection against infection without any observable adverse effects.
Wednesday, Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell said clinical trials on a vaccine for the virus may be delayed because the National Institutes of Health will run out of these repurposed funds by the end of this month.
Testing will begin here and at two other locations very soon, but it could be a year – maybe more – before the vaccine is available to the public.
These vaccines are developed by Harvard, the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Centre and the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research.
Advertisement
The PIV approach to vaccination is “tried and true”, said Adalja, who is also a senior associate with the University of Pittsburgh’s Center for Health Security. The DNA vaccine was given in two doses (the second 4 weeks after the first) and the vector-based vaccine was given just once. “But this is not a vaccine that’s ready to be given to the masses”, Neuzil said.
